


Sparks in the Void

by hint2bee



Series: Sparks in the Void [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Brainwashing, F/F, F/M, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-16
Updated: 2016-07-16
Packaged: 2018-07-21 20:49:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7403833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hint2bee/pseuds/hint2bee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>this is part one because i was too lazy to plot.</p><p>post-apocalyptic AU with lotsa swearing, fun references to past trauma (moreso in later parts) and just a whole lot of fun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sparks in the Void

When the movies and the TV shows had told them the world would end, they’d shown the sky as being an ugly orange, a burnt out sun, rust colored clouds constantly lingering. Smoke would always be pouring from some random hole in the ground, and the steely eyed protagonists would always be armed, glaring ahead of them.

That being said, Steve’s never seen the sky more blue.

“You keep your face like that, it’ll get stuck that way,” a voice snipes, and Steve whirls around to face the person.

“Shut your ugly fucking trap, Buck,” Steve muses, “you know that’s an old wives tale.”

“You never know, with all this radiation,” Bucky laughs, “anything is possible.”

Minus the forty (give or take) of Steve and Bucky’s group, most of the world had been completely and utterly fucked in the ass by Hydra, an organization hell bent on “cleansing” the Earth. They performed this cleansing by bombing every major city in the world with literal tons of nuclear bombs. Of course, they weren’t just doing this for shits and giggles, they spared a little over a hundred people purposefully, calling them the Chosen Ones. They called it Operation Diamond Earth, and Steve and Bucky’s friend Dum Dum called it “Rich People Only”, as there was a considerable upfront payment required to become a Chosen One. People like Steve, Bucky and their group were on the top of Hydra’s kill list, because they couldn’t complete the Operation without everyone, and they meant _everyone_ , out of the way.

Steve and Bucky’s group was made up of an ever-dwindling group of people who had been driving through north Texas when the overpass of route 380 decided to snap right in half due to the shockwave from Dallas, leaving about two hundred dead, and (at the time) around two hundred more stranded in their cars. Steve and Bucky were on a road trip to Alameda, California, to visit Rebecca, Bucky’s sister, who had just moved. They, obviously, hadn’t made it very far, only getting halfway from their Brooklyn apartment.

“Should we get back to base?” Bucky asks, watching gray clouds roll over each other on the horizon, each getting higher than the last, billowing and flowing towards the two of them.

“We’ll try to find the supply stores tomorrow?” Steve asks, squinting at Bucky.

“Yeah, we should have enough to last the night. How do you think Peggy’ll respond?”

Peggy was their democratically voted leader, the tenth in a long line, most of whom hadn’t even made an impact. The first had been Nadja, a computer tech, who’d offed herself when her wife died. The second, June, had lasted quite a while longer than Nadja, and was a good leader, but had stepped down due to stress, and was currently the weapon stores manager. The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth had all died within four days of taking the position, during what was possibly the worst month since this had began, nearly four years ago. The seventh through the ninth had been an attempt at a trifecta of leaders, all of whom wanted full power. They sabotaged each other until only one remained, and he’d been so unpopular as a person they just outright killed him. Finally, they decided to vote in a leader, between three possible candidates, ending in a landslide victory for Peggy.

“Peggy’ll understand, our safety before anything. Those storms look like they’d kill us.”

“Then let’s get going, hot shot,” Bucky says, smiling at Steve. Steve smiles back crookedly, and the two of them disarm their guns, and begin making their way back through the city to their base.

Their current base, located about sixty miles from where Denver used to be, is an abandoned school (how ironically post apocalyptic). They’ve been using said base for about five weeks at this point, and the general air around the base reads that they’ll be moving soon. They can’t stay in any one place for too long, since Hydra is always searching for those roaming groups of survivors, to wipe them out once and for all.

Steve and Bucky had been friends since childhood, growing up in the backwoods of New York. They moved to Brooklyn together, after graduating high school, Steve to pursue a career as an artist and Bucky to attend college and become an engineer. Steve had become rather successful when a rich businesswoman had single handedly bought his entire gallery of works, and Bucky was on the verge of graduating, with multiple job offers. They had decided to use Bucky’s final spring break to help his sister, and Steve has never been more thankful of a happy coincidence.

Had they stayed in the city, they would’ve been ash, just like their apartment, Bucky’s school, Steve’s art, and the rest of the city.

“Any luck, you two?” the food stores manager, Monty, a sarcastic man with a light, posh British accent, asks Steve and Bucky as they come in and pass their weapons up for cleaning.

“No, not today. Big storm rolling in from the south,” Steve says. Monty sighs, and shakes his head.

“It’s okay, we should have enough food for the next three days. Let’s hope this is a short storm,” he says, “I would still suggest one of you checking in with Peggy, however. She will want to know you didn’t make the pick up.”

Bucky claps Steve on the shoulder, and smiles.

“You can go, I know how much you like visiting with Peggy, any excuse is good enough for you to visit with her,” Bucky says, giving Steve a gentle push towards her headquarters, located in the principal’s office. Bucky watches him walk towards her office, Steve turning back once to roll his eyes and smile at Bucky. Bucky watches with slightly parted lips, smiling back at Steve, sighing as he disappears.

“My god, Barnes, you’re in deep,” Monty laughs, rolling his eyes. Bucky jumps, and glares at Monty.

“You’re kidding yourself. We’re friends,” Bucky snaps, huffing at the man.

“Yes, because most of the friends I have stare lovingly at my exiting ass, and then blush at the mere suggestion we might be more than friends,” Monty laughs.

“Oh, and how many of those friends are alive?” Bucky growls. Monty’s smile drops, and he turns away from Bucky.

“Not enough,” Monty says, regretfully.

It’s been four years since the first wave of bombs, and most people have yet to recover.

“I-I’m sorry, Monty. It’s a tough subject for me, yah know. Steve’s been my friend for years, and. Anyways, I shouldn’t have said what I said,” Bucky says, reaching out to touch the man on the shoulder, but pulling back before contact is made.

“It’s alright, Barnes,” Monty says, and then he laughs a little.

“What is it, are you finding humor in my idiocy?” Barnes asks, still slightly on the defensive. Monty shakes his head.

“No, just I’d expect Steve to be the snappy one. You’re absorbing his personality traits,” Monty laughs, a devious grin on his face.

“Jesus, fuck you Monty, I’m gonna go talk to Dum Dum,” Bucky laughs.

Monty’s right. About a lot of things. But Bucky will never admit these things to himself.

* * *

Steve’s mind drifts has he walks to Peggy’s office. He’s an artist, he’s got a creative mind, and creative minds float around, alight on wings made of stained glass and dreams.

Bucky would punch his shoulder if he could hear Steve when he thinks about these stupid artsy things. Truth is, Steve rarely thinks like an artist. You can’t afford that level of relaxation in the world they live in, riddled with death and destruction and radioactive poisoning.

Peggy’s in the middle of a conversation with Daniel Sousa, the transportation manager for their group, but when she sees Steve waiting the door, she pardons herself from Daniel to wave Steve in.

“Ah, Steve, come in. Something in your face and your early arrival tells me you didn’t actually go to the storage facility,” Peggy says. Steve stands, shoulders up, hands behind his back, rocking a little bit on his heels.

“No ma’am, storms coming in from the south. Barnes and I are planning on going out tomorrow,” he says, smiling at her. Peggy smiles gently up at Steve in a way that makes Steve feel relaxed, like everything’s gonna be okay, even though everything is decidedly not okay.

“As long as it’s safe. We don’t want two of our best scouts to get hurt, now do we?” she asks. Peggy’s motherly without being patronizing, a comfort everyone sorely needs in this time.

“No ma’am, we don’t,” Steve says, giving Peggy his best million dollar smile, the one that Bucky said made the girls swoon at every turn. It doesn’t exactly make Peggy swoon, but it does make her smile a little wider. Steve turns to leave, almost running into Angie, a peppy ex-actress who works as Peggy’s second, who’s coming through the door.

Angie brushes past him, not a word to him. She normally at least says hello. She’s pale, out of breath, sweat beading at her brows. Steve raises an eyebrow, and turns around to hear what she has to say.

“We’re getting reports of Hydra scouts coming in from the east, we’re going to have to evacuate within the day,” Angie says,

“How close?” Peggy asks, her calm demeanor not showing a single crack.

“Fifteen miles. No wreckage in their path,” Angie says between heaving breathes. She’s run in from the scouting station.

“Steve, call in the evacuation. We can’t lose anymore,” Peggy says. Steve knows what she’s talking about. The last time they let Hydra slip through their ranks, they lost over half of the remaining survivors.

“Oh, and Steve!” Peggy says as Steve bolts off. Steve pauses, turning slightly to her.

“Make sure they’re armed,” she says. Steve can see just hint of worry in her otherwise calm face. They’re on the verge of losing. As Steve runs down the halls, he feels a rising panic in his chest. 

“We’ve got to evacuate! Hydra’s on their way!” Steve shouts, entering the common room. Immediately, before Steve can even process what’s before his eyes, there’s an uproar of commotion. Steve’s heaving, he’s in a panic, he can’t see anything in front of him. The next thing he knows, there’s someone holding his face, and his vision clears slightly.

“Hey, hey, it’s me. Breathe. In, and out. In, and out,” someone says. He’s just able to process Bucky’s face in front of his, blocking out the fear and the chaos around him.

“Don’t panic, I’m right here in front of you. Keep breathing, Steve,” Bucky says. Steve’s vision clears, he thinks, but in reality it’s just focusing in on Bucky.

“Now, what do you say we go help the others pack up?” Bucky asks, smiling at Steve. Steve nods, still breathless.

“Good idea,” he heaves, stumbling over his feet as he reaches for a gun.

“Hah, how about we go help pack up the bedding?” Bucky says, lunging for the gun. Steve nods again, and Bucky slings the gun around his back. You never know when you’ll need it. He leads Steve out of the common area, which is just the gym of the school, to the parking lot, where the rest of the group is dashing back and forth between the building and the small fleet of trucks they have, loading them up with whatever might be needed at the next stop, wherever that may be.

Steve looks around, wind blowing in gusts from the storms, in the south. Hydra, coming in from the east. Peggy might go straight northwest, to Portland or Seattle, but she might also loop around the storm and go somewhere like Albuquerque or Phoenix. Alternatively, they might somehow, magically, avoid Hydra and go east again, to Dallas or Alabama, or northeast, to Philadelphia and New York. It takes them about three days to get anywhere from Denver, and they camp at certain places for normally no more than two weeks before Hydra finds them again. Steve and Bucky have had a couple close calls themselves, but haven’t received more than the occasional bullet to the limb.

It’s ridiculous to think that four years ago if you told either of them they’d have multiple bullet wounds they’d laugh their asses off.

“Come on, get in you two!” Morita says, gently pushing the two towards a truck. Steve is still reeling from his panic attack, and moves towards the truck without protest. Daniel’s in the driver’s seat, Peggy and Dum Dum sitting next to him. Morita follows them into the truck, and slams the door shut.

“Glad you could join the party,” Peggy says, loading a gun, and passing it back. Bucky declines, holding his own weapon up.

“But what about Steve?” she asks.

“Just had a panic attack, not in the position to work a gun right now,” Bucky says, and Peggy nods understandingly.

“What direction, Peg?” Daniel asks, starting the car. 

“East,” Peggy snaps, Steve sees another crack in her demeanor.

“But that’s where the-”

“I know what’s in the east, Daniel. I said go _east_ ,” she almost growls. 

"Mind if I ask?" Daniel asks.

"They're not in the city yet, we if we can get to Dallas we'll be safe for another week, at least," Peggy says. Daniel nods, and begins towards the east. Steve’s panic is ebbing, he can breath again.

“You okay?” Bucky asks, nervous.

“I’m fine. Just anxious. Feeling weird. Like…” Steve says, cutting himself off.

“Like what?”

“Like something bad’s gonna happen.”

As the truck bumps along, Bucky talks to Steve, tries to keep him grounded.

“Remember when we moved into our apartment and the first thing you did was burn something, and our landlord almost kicked us out right then and there?” Bucky asks. Steve nods, breathing slowly.

“I was trying to make bread, it was the middle of winter.”

“And I told you I coulda just gone to the fuckin’ store?”

Steve laughs breathily, and focuses on the floor of the truck. The truck hits a pothole, and Steve almost bumps into the ceiling.

“Hey, you’re okay. Focus on me,” Bucky says.

“Hey, hey, remember when I made you ride the Cyclone on Coney Island?” he asks, running a hand up and down Steve’s shoulder.

“Yeah, and I threw up?” Steve snarks back.

“There’s my Stevie,” Bucky says, smiling. The truck slows to the a stop, and Bucky glares at Daniel.

“Why are we stopping?” he snaps, still holding on to Steve.

“They're already here,” Peggy says, and the familiar clicking of five guns loading fills the cabin of the truck. Dum Dum hands Steve another gun, and Steve loads it.

The storm’s blowing up a cloud of dark brown dust, almost blocking out what little sunlight is left. But there, in the distance, Steve can see the black clothed soldiers, faces covered. One of them comes forward, with a megaphone.

“ _Surrender peacefully, or we will be forced to kill you_ ,” he says, his voice barely audible over the howling wind.

“Not today you Nazi piece of shit,” Peggy snaps, loading her pump action rifle, and shooting him through the window.

With that one shot, the world explodes into a chaotic blend of howling wind, screams, and gunshots. Bucky gets out of the car, and begins sniping off singular soldiers, but more and more appear out of what is seemingly nothingness, and Bucky just can’t pick them off. Steve gets out as well, but he never had as good of an aim as Bucky, preferring to fight close up, though that’s not an option at this point.

Steve hears a yelp beside him, and Peggy’s suddenly on the ground, bullet wound in her arm.

“ _Medic_!” Steve screams. Morita races around the truck to try and help her, but a bullet snaps across the field and into his neck, and he collapses. Steve’s world spins around him, and he rips off the hem of Peggy’s t-shirt to try and create a makeshift bandage.

“Hey, it’s okay Steve. It’s not that deep. Just tie my arm tightly, I’ll be fine,” Peggy says, her voice smooth and steady. Steve follows her instructions, and takes strips of her shirt, binding her arm.

“Where’s my gun?” she asks.

“I don’t think you should-”

“Steve, I’m a sitting duck without my gun,” Peggy says, wincing as she sits up. Steve looks around for her rifle, but see someone else has picked it up, and is using it to bash a Hydra soldier’s head in.

“Uh. Take my pistol,” Steve says, passing it off to the woman. 

“No, Steve,” Peggy says, pressing it back to him.

“Come on, I’m better in the back, and you know it. Besides, Morita’s down and we need a medic. I know enough,” Steve says.

“Stay safe. Don’t do anything reckless,” she says, taking the gun, and firing it off immediately.

“Go, help them,” she says, and Steve nods. He can barely see Bucky in the distance, sniping off soldier after soldier. Steve crawls towards Morita’s body, and tries to take his pulse.

There’s nothing there.

“Medic! Over here!” Monty shouts, kneeling over Dernier, bullet wound in his lower hip.

Steve nods, and jogs towards the two of them, scraping his knees on the gravel as he kneels next to them. How did Morita do this?

“I. I’m not sure,” Steve whispers.

“Take off your jacket,” another voice says, sliding in beside Steve. A man he doesn’t recognize, with glasses and light brown hair, kneels next to him. Steve complies, handing the man the cotton jacket. Immediately, he whips a pair of scissors from his belt and cuts off the sleeve.

“Who are you again?” Steve asks, staving off a panic attack.

“Bruce Banner. You’re not in my group, I think we already have a jacked blonde,” he says, applying pressure to Dernier’s wound.

“You’re a medic,” Steve says, holding on to what he can. Where’s Bucky?

“Yes,” Bruce says, “hold that.” Bruce stands, and moves towards a woman laying on her side. She’s heaving, she has a bullet wound in her stomach. Steve follows Bruce, and he’s holding her hand.

“I’m sorry, miss,” he says, and she nods, understandingly.

“Are you religious?” he asks.

“Muslim,” she whispers.

“Buried in white, before sun down, right?” Bruce asks. 

“Y-yes,” she whispers. Her grip on Bruce’s hand is weakening.

“Thank you,” she whispers, the light fading from her eyes. Steve stares at her, in shock.

“What was your name?” Bruce asks.

She whispers her name, eyes closing. Bruce takes out a sharpie, and grabs her arm. He writes her name, her date of death, and draws a crescent moon on her wrist.

“When they drop like flies, there’s no easy way to send them off. We do what we can,” Bruce says to Steve.

Someone else calls for a medic, and Bruce runs off, gauze in hand. Steve hears the familiar sound of Bucky’s sniper rifle, and looks around for him. The storm is getting worse, he can barely hear the shouts of the battle over the raging wind. Steve takes in a ragged breath, and stands, gun out, stumbling towards Bucky. He’s losing his grip on reality, his mind is lapsing into that strange middle zone that he goes into when he has a panic attack.

That zone that only Bucky could bring him back from.

He sees Bucky, through the dust, for just a moment, and stumbles towards him, but falls on his knees before he can reach him. Bucky slams the hilt of his gun across the jaw of the person he’s fighting, and catches sight of Steve on the ground.

“Man, I had him on the ropes,” Bucky says, sliding in towards Steve, grasping at his face.

“I know you did,” Steve whispers, leaning into Bucky’s touch, grounding him into reality.Steve takes in a ragged breath, trying to absorb in the calmness that Bucky’s presence brings. Bucky wraps his arms around Steve, hugging him tightly. Steve holds on to him as tightly as he can, trying not to lose grip.

“Steve, I need to ask you something,” Bucky says.

“Go ahead Buck,” Steve whispers into his ear. There’s a sudden explosion, and Steve jerks back. He sees a flank of Hydra soldiers advancing on them.

“Maybe later,” Bucky laughs, helping Steve up. Bucky was always horribly lighthearted when there was danger around, but it did make Steve feel better sometimes.

A truck swerves towards them, and Steve sees Peggy, being tended to by Bruce and Angie, already in the back.

“Get in!” a man shouts to them. Bucky pushes Steve up into the truck, and runs back towards another truck.

“ _Bucky_!” Steve yells, about to get out.

“ _I’m just gonna get something, one second_!” Bucky shouts, jogging towards the truck. Steve watches with anxious eyes as Bucky rushes towards the truck. He reaches the door, and it’s locked, so Bucky runs around to the driver’s side, out of Steve’s sight.

It happens in an instant.

There’s no chance to recover.

It was like that when Steve’s parents died. It was a car crash and he was fifteen. It was like that when he and Bucky were driving to Alameda, when there were screams of fear on the radio and then it just cut off, the second before the road in front of them crashed to the ground.

The truck blows up.

And Bucky along with it.

Steve’s world spins. Static clogs his ears as he stumbles back into the truck, stepping on someone’s foot but not paying attention. There’s voices shouting for him, asking questions, but the only thing he can focus on is the cloud of smoke in front of him where Bucky was.

And he blacks out.

* * *

“Sleeping beauty over there should be up within the hour,” someone says, and Steve stirs.

“Ah, never mind, he’s up already!” the person says. Steve doesn’t recognize the voice, but when he opens his eyes, he can see Bruce Banner, standing over him with a glass of water in hand. He’s in an empty makeshift hospital ward, with open walls that allow him to look out onto the lake that the ward is facing.

“Drink,” he says, and Steve does, without question. There’s another man next to him, this one with a close shaved beard.

“Good morning. You got a name, or did the explosion and stepping on my feet do you in?” the other man asks.

“Steve Rogers. Where’s Bucky?” he asks, with an urgency. The other man opens his mouth, apparently to say something snappy, but Bruce stamps on his foot.

“Steve, I’m horribly sorry but…” Bruce trails off. Steve knew where Bucky was. He just. Hoped.

“Peggy and Angie?” he asks. He thinks he saw them, but he barely saw anything in those few minutes.

“The lovely lesbians-” Bruce stamps on his foot again “-are doing just fine. Sleeping right now, I believe. Peggy, the brunette? Resting due to quite a nasty bullet wound to her arm, and, oh yeah, losing the damn thing.”

For a third time within five minutes, Bruce stamps on the man’s foot.

“You’re just full of tact,” Steve grumbles, tears stinging his eyes.

“Tony Stark, you better fucking know it, man,” the man, Tony, says, holding his foot and trying not to fall on his ass.

“Oh yeah, Stark. You got weird about four years ago. Warning the apocalypse was approaching,” Steve says, sitting up.

“Yes, and we all saw how wrong I was,” Tony says, rolling his eyes.

“To be fair, the apocalypse involves the death of the Earth and everything within it, and as far as I can see it, I’m pretty alive,” Steve snaps. His vision is fading again.

“You’re not looking it, Steve. Look at me,” Bruce says, holding up his chin. Steve can barely breath.

“I have. I have serious issues with panic attacks,” Steve says, trying to focus on one thing, on anything, but his mind is just moving too fast, hurting him. There’s a hollow feeling in his chest, and it fills with pain.

“Steve, I’m so sorry,” Bruce says, and then there’s a needle in Steve’s arm, and his vision fades once again.

When he wakes up again, it’s dark outside, and there’s another man in the ward, sitting next to an oil lamp and reading a book.

“Hey, you’re up. How’re you feeling?” the man asks, approaching Steve.

“A little woozy,” Steve says, sitting up and wincing. He’s got a horrible headache.

“Stands to reason, Bruce stuck you with enough morphine to keep you unconscious for a good eight hours,” the man says, helping Steve up.

“I’m Sam Wilson, by the way,” he says pouring Steve a glass of water.

“Steve Rogers,” Steve says, drinking the glass. It brings him some relief, but he just can’t shake that hollow feeling.

“How many of us survived the raid?” Steve asks.

“Your group? I’m really sorry but other than you, only seven others,” Sam says. Steve takes in a deep breath, and sighs. He hears a sharp ringing sound in the distance, and Sam visibly perks up.

“That’ll be the dinner bell. You hungry? It’s nothing fancy but it’s food,” Sam offers.

“Yeah. Food sounds good.”

Sam walks with Steve through the compound, which looks well organized and semipermanent, which is nearly impossible in this world.

“Are you guys permanent?” Steve asks Sam, who nods.

“Our leader, Thor, he’s really logical, and his sense of spacial reasoning is off the charts. He figured out that Hydra sends their soldiers out from their bases, and calls them back before dark, so he figured this twenty mile radius of land was impenetrable to the Hydra soldiers, since we’re surrounded by a ring of mountains. We’re about thirty miles outside of Denver right now, and our scouts, Clint and Natasha, they saw Hydra heading towards you guys, so we deployed. We’re lucky we got you guys in time,” Sam says. 

“How many in your group?” Steve asks.

“Uh. I don’t have an official count, most of the time I’m either scouting or doing medic duties, so I don’t spend a whole lot of time around the main group. Nearly a hundred, I’d say,” Sam says, “left here.”

Steve follows Sam, the sounds of a crowd and the smells of food growing stronger. Sam pulls back a heavy makeshift curtain, and Steve is hit with a wave of warmth, noise, and the smell of food. Suddenly, he feels woozy, and he’s starving. Someone calls out to him, and he turns around to see Peggy, Angie, and the other five survivors from his group sitting in one table. Peggy has her left arm, or what’s left of it, in a sling, and is eating a sandwich with one hand. She stands up to hug Steve, listing slightly to her right, and he’s able to balance her before she falls.

“Hey, how are you?” she asks, hugging him.

“I’m fine. I thought you guys were all dead,” he says, his voice trembling. He helps Peggy back to her seat, and takes account of everyone at the table. Angie, Dum Dum, Dernier, Monty, Gabe Jones, and _Morita_?

“I thought you died?” Steve asks, looking at the beat up man. His neck is bandaged, and he’s got a deep cut on his left ear, but he laughs.

“You don’t know how to take a pulse. You were feeling above my wrist, it’s very hard to detect a pulse there. Luckily, Bruce got to me in time,” he says, taking a bite out of his own food. Steve feels a plate being pushed into his hands, and Sam smiles at him.

“Go on, eat, you need it. We’ll get you guys fixed up with jobs and stuff tomorrow. For now, rest, eat,” he says, smiling at the group.

“Thank you, really,” Peggy says, laying a gentle hand on Sam’s shoulder, and he smiles at her. Steve feels the emptiness in his chest again, but he’s able to hold it in. You lose people all the time in situations like this, and he can’t start moping and mourning. Not just yet, anyways.

He’s never been religious, but he wonders if there’s an afterlife.

He wonders if Bucky’s there.

* * *

When the truck blew up, Bucky thought he was dead too.

But when a Hydra soldier leaned over his limp body, just barely visible through his hooded eyes, and just barely audible through his ringing ears, he hoped he was dead.

_Boss, there’s someone alive here!_

_How alive?_

They take his limp body to the back of a truck, and strap him down.

“Stevie,” he mumbles, looking around for him. Someone laughs, a gruff laugh that’s decidedly not Steve’s.

“You ain’t gonna see your Stevie for a long while,” the person behind the laugh says, and Bucky sees black.

When he wakes up he keeps his eyes closed. He hears people talking.

The room he’s in is cold, and he’s lying on a steel slab, he can feel the smooth metal under him. There’s an imbalance in his body, but right now, he can’t determine what that is at this moment. The room around him is silent, but that might just be the ringing in his ears. His throat is dry, he’s struggling to breath, and he feels ill from the lack of food. When he tries to open his eyes, he realizes he can’t even do that.

He lapses out of consciousness again.

* * *

When he opens his eyes again, he’s not on the table.

He’s in a field, a field with golden grass and a gentle breeze. Purple mountains loom in the distance, and the sky is a faint blue.

He hears a rustling through the grass, and turns around to see Steve, standing behind him.

“Hey Buck,” Steve says, smiling at him. Bucky opens his mouth to say something, but the words just won’t come out.

_Steve._

_Stevie, I’m here._

_I love you, Steve._

* * *

“What do we put on the records?” the gruff voiced man asks his supervisor.

“He died on the operating table. According to the plan.”

“What name should I put on the death record?”

“James Barnes.”

“And for the new record?”

“I rather like the name Yasha, don’t you?”

“Yasha it is, sir.”

* * *

 

* * *

Steve wakes up in a cold sweat.

The people in the bunks around him are breathing peacefully, but he can’t imagine anything more stressful.

The words from his dream are already fading, but Bucky’s voice still fills his head.

_Stevie…_

Steve had loved him.

He’d never admit it, not to himself, not Bucky, or anyone else, but he knew, deep in his soul, that he loved Bucky.

“Hey man, it’s three in the morning, you okay?” Sam asks, leaning over the side of his bunk towards Steve.

“I think I might just go for a jog,” Steve mumbles, jumping down from the top bunk, careful not to disturb his bunk mate. It’s too late, however, as she’s already up.

“Keeping secrets is unhealthy,” the red head says, buffing her nails.

“Natasha, where did you even get a nail buffer from?” Sam asks.

“One of my smaller luxuries,” she says. Her hair is nearly neon against her gray sleeping clothes, braided and laid against her left shoulder. Her husband, Clint, is still asleep on his stomach, his mouth open, snoring lightly. He snorts, and closes his mouth.

“You know, Nat’s got a point,” he mumbles, and goes back to snoring.

“It’s been four months since we’ve met you and we know about as much about you as the others know about me. And I’m me,” she says coolly.

“I thought you just said keeping secrets was unhealthy,” Steve retorts. 

“I never said it was unhealthy for me to keep secrets, I’m just saying it’s unhealthy for _you_ to keep secrets,” Nat says. Sam hops down from his own bunk, and plops down on his bunkmate’s bed, and pats the spot next to him. Steve plops down next to him, waking up Sam’s bunkmate.

“Fuck you, Sam,” the blonde girl growls. 

“Not into that, Sharon,” Sam laughs.

“Well go fuck someone. Thor. Steve. Someone who is your type. Jacked and blonde, right?” Sharon grumbles. Her girlfriend, Maria, stirs, and grumbles.

“Why are we up dealing with these people?” she mutters.

“Steve’s keeping secrets,” Sam says, laughing, “and just so you know, you do still fit my type if those are the only two qualifications.”

“If only you and I weren’t gay,” Sharon mutters, pushing Sam off the bed. There’s a quiet “oof” and Steve feels someone at his feet.

“Come on Sharon, we can make it work,” Sam teases, from the floor.

“You could be on death row and you’d flirt with your executioner,” Sharon growls, turning back to Maria. Steve rolls his eyes, and begins climbing back up into his bunk.

“Nuh-uh, mister, we’re not done with you,” Sam says, grabbing Steve by the waist, and pulling him back down. Steve falls back, on to Sam, and Sam wheezes.

“What do you weigh man, like, two twenty? Two thirty?” Sam coughs.

“Two fifty,” Steve says.

“Jesus, are you made of muscle or something?”

“Yes, that’s my secret. Now can I go back to sleep?” Steve grumbles.

“ _God_ , will you assholes _shut up_?” someone shouts from across the room.

“ _You shut your own goddamn mouth, Loki_!” Sam shouts back.

“ _I’m getting Thor_!”

“God yes,” Sam whispers.

“Do you live just to see his abs?” Steve asks.

“Tell me what you think, Steve,” Sam says, laughing, “and since you know about my completely stupid and unnecessary crush on Thor, tell me about your Bucky,” Sam says.

“How did you-”

“You sleep talk. And Bruce told me.”

“In the morning, okay? I kinda wanna try to sleep,” Steve says.

“You do you, I’m gonna wait for Thor to come over so I can check him out,” Sam says.

“Take off your shirt,” Steve says.

“Uh-uh. No. I’ll look like Danny DeVito next to him. Not in a million years, Steve,” Sam says. Steve laughs as he hauls himself back up to his bunk. He flops onto his pillow. Thor comes over, and he and Sam talk for a moment, before both disappearing into another room, much to Loki’s chagrin. After everyone falls silent, back into quiet, steady breathing, Steve turns back around. Sam’s not in his bunk, and Nat’s left for her watch, and Clint is asleep, so Steve grabs his shoes from the foot of the bed, and begins putting them on.

* * *

The soldier watches from a crest.

It’s dark, even he can barely see.

But he can see the compound in the distance.

He takes out his map, and marks the spot, for later, and begins slowly walking down the hill to the building.

It’s quiet when he gets to the door.

Of course it’d be, it’s—the soldier checks his watch, the only luxury he is allowed—three in the morning. He reaches towards the handle, but he hears someone speaking inside. His hand jerks back from the handle, as if it’s a hot iron.

Those hurt, he would know.

There are voices, and he stops and listens for a moment. He can’t identify words, but he stands stock still for twenty minutes, waiting. As the last voices fade from the room, he begins moving towards the door again, opening it ever, _ever_ so slowly.

And he stops.

A man, putting on a pair of sneakers, stares back at him, seven rows of bunks away from the door. It’s too dark to see his face, so the soldier simply ducks out, and begins sprinting back to his hidden lookout.

“Update, mission log, oh-three-two-seven, I’ve been spotted by one of the rebels, attempting get away,” the soldier whispers into the recording device on his neck.

“Who’s there?” a voice asks. It’s male, and an assertive voice. The soldier remains still.

“I saw you, in the doorway,” the man says. What a stubborn asshole.

“It’s okay, I’m not gonna hurt you, unless you’re Hydra.”

No luck there.

“God, I must look like such an idiot, talking to nothing. But I did see you. Unless I’m going crazy.”

The soldier edges his head out of the bush, not enough to be seen, but enough to see the man. He’s tall, muscular, with blonde hair and blue eyes. He’s sitting on the crest where the soldier was a few minutes ago, staring out on to the camp.

Upon seeing him, Yasha feels confused.

Why does he look so familiar? Why is the soldier’s heart suddenly beating faster?

Why does he feel like crying?

* * *

Steve sits on the crest, watching the camp. The wind blows slowly through the trees, and in the far distance, he can barely see Denver, a lumpy mass of destroyed buildings, outlined against the glittering stars.

“I guess I was just dreaming,” Steve mumbles to nothing, and the silence reaffirms his statement.

He lies back, onto the grass, and watches the stars overhead.

When the bombs went off, there were no thoughts towards the future, and even now, four years later, their world is short term, constantly snapping back and forth, in and out reach. They don’t see birds in the sky anymore, and Steve doesn’t know if that’s because they’re all dead, or if they’ve moved somewhere else.

But the sky is always bright and clear. There will be occasional overcast days, they do definitely get a lot less rain, but the air feels clean and fresh no matter where they go, unless it’s deep in the bombing areas.

Steve’s only ever been in a bombing zone once, and he couldn’t breathe properly for a month. Since that moment, Peggy had always made sure to make big circles around the cities that had been bombed.

With no light pollution, the night sky had become a thing of wonder no matter where you were. The moon is bright and glowing everywhere, the stars and the dust of the Milky Way glisten.

Steve has always loved the night sky. So had Bucky. Whenever Steve would go on the roof of their apartment building to paint what little they could see of the night sky, Bucky would follow, and sit in silence for hours, just staring at the sky with Steve.

Sometimes Steve thought Bucky had been staring at him, but he knew that was just wishful thinking on his part.

Steve misses him.

Steve misses him like he would miss his heart, because Bucky had been his heart. Bucky had been his heart, his anchor, his star, his soul.

Bucky had been his everything.

And as much as he likes this new group, and as much as he trusts the remnants of his old group, he doesn’t think they’d ever understand how he felt, how much Bucky had meant to him. How much Bucky means to him.

He feels a silent tear roll down his cheek, and he stands, and walks back down the crest.

* * *

The soldier watches the man stand and walk back down the hill to his camp. He stays still for another five minutes, and then stands and begins moving quickly back to his camp.

Then he hears the click of the gun behind him.

“That’s unwise,” he says, in a cutting tone.

“You’re Hydra,” a female voice, cold and deep, growls. He sees another figure approaching, from the other side of the crest.

“Jumanah! Go get backup!” the woman behind him shouts to the approaching figure. The person, another woman, shouts back an affirmation, and sprints down the hill.

“You move, I shoot you in the neck. You talk out of line, I shoot you in the neck. You breath funny, and you’re dead, you get it?” the woman growls at the soldier, “what’s your name?”

“They call me Yasha,” the soldier says.

“I didn’t ask what ‘they’ called you, I asked what your name was,” the woman growls, pressing the gun into his neck. It’s a sniper rifle, good for long distance, the soldier uses one nearly identical.

“I don’t know,” he mumbles.

“You’re Hydra, right? How’d you join?”

“I don’t know.”

The woman groans, exasperated.

“How old are you?”

“I don’t-”

“Do you know anything?”

“I know the mission,” he says.

“And?”

“Report back by oh-nine-thirty tomorrow with information on the location of unknown rebellion’s base,” he says.

“So you’re a Hydra spy,” the woman grumbles, angry.

“I guess that’s the right word,” the soldier replies. There’s a group of people emerging from the compound now, they’re armed, and approaching Yasha and the woman.

The soldier twitches slightly, and he feels the muzzle of the gun press further into his neck.

“You move again and I shoot,” the woman says. The group is about four hundred feet away now.

The soldier springs into action. He snaps his left arm back, pulling the gun out of the woman’s grasp. She gasps, and he kicks across her face, sprawling her out on the ground. The group is running and shouting now. The soldier tosses the gun down, and begins running. Shots begin firing around him, and he ducks to avoid them as they whistle past his ears. People are shouting to go after him, to not let him get away, but as he keeps running, focusing only on the ground ahead of him, the shouts fade.

His handlers will be thrilled to hear the information he’s obtained.

* * *

“Fall back! Prepare a scouting party. He won’t get too far on foot,” Thor shouts, over the din of the gunshots. The shots slow down, and stop. Steve watches the man disappear into darkness, and sighs. He could’ve prevented this, if only he wasn’t such a godawful sentimental sap.

“I sure hope Nat’s okay,” Sam says as they trudge back to the base. The last they’d seen of her, Clint was rushing to her side, and she was lying still on the grass.

“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Sharon says, unloading her gun.

“Who was that man? Does anyone know?” Tony asks, slinging his gun over his shoulder.

“Hydra,” Steve mumbles.

“Thor said they recall their soldiers at night,” Sam says, sighing.

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s an advanced model,” Tony says, eyeing Steve up.

“Don’t talk about them like they’re robots, Tony. They’re people,” Steve mutters. They’re walking over the hill back into the valley that cradles their base.

“People who have made the horrible decision to become, as your dear old Peggy calls them, ‘fucking Nazis’,” Tony says sarcastically, rolling his eyes. Peggy’s back at the base, undoubtedly waiting up for Angie. She’s still rehabilitating to having only one arm, but she’s getting better and better daily. Steve saw her take out a paper dummy from a hundred yards away with a pistol yesterday. He’s happy for her.

They’re adapting to the situation quite well.

Except Steve.

He’s got friends, sure, and he likes his life well enough for the general situation, but he can’t help but feel like Bucky could’ve, would’ve, should’ve been saved.

Why was he even going back to the truck?

Steve’s gone over the situation a million times to see if he could figure out one thing, one small detail that made Bucky go back to the truck.

He had his gun. Steve had been holding his little bag with the few precious things he and Steve kept. Bucky wasn’t an idiot.

What was he doing?

Steve’s head feels light for a moment, but he shakes it off and keeps walking.

The lightheadedness pursues and he trips over a rock.

“Hey, Steve!” Sam says, jerking back towards him.

He feels his head moving into that middle zone that only Bucky could bring him from.

The next thing he feels is the sharp contact between his skull and the dusty ground, and the weight like a ton of bricks on his chest.

And the darkness.

* * *

The soldier can’t run anymore.

He’s not tired.

He just feels.

Something wrong.

So he turns around.

And runs back.

* * *

“Romanoff will recover, just’ll have a nasty boot mark on her forehead for a while. Whereas for Rogers… I’m taking him off active duty for the time being. We can’t have a foot soldier fainting every time he has a bad thought. Nothing against him, you know,” Thor says. Steve can hear it through the haze of his sleep.

“I understand. When he was in my group, Barnes would always calm him down. But now that Barnes is dead… well. We don’t exactly have anyone to ground him to Earth anymore,” Peggy says. 

“And what do you think we should do in relation to the spy?” Thor asks.

“Why do you ask me? I’m not the leader of this group,” Peggy says.

“But you are a leader. I trust your input,” Thor says.

“I think we need to uproot and move out as quickly as possible. When Hydra comes, they will come in full force. There’s not that many of us. They’re almost done massacring us,” she says, her voice trembling.

“My brother, Loki, he’s made contact with a group in northeast Africa, led by a Prince. I say a group, it’s more like an entire country. He’s offered us asylum, if we can get to the East Coast by the end of the year. Then they’ll be shutting their borders and bombing all the Hydra bases they know of. Which is most of them,” Thor says.

“Then we go to the East Coast,” Peggy says.

Steve hears someone slamming the med bay ward open.

“We have an issue,” Maria’s breathless voice says.

“What’s wrong?” Peggy asks, her voice hitched.

“The spy. He’s back. He’s offering himself up. Says he couldn’t do it.” Maria says.

“ _What_?” Thor asks.

“Another thing Peggy,” Maria says, and then Steve hears unintelligible whispers.

“No…” Peggy whispers, and they run out of the room.

It’s only then that Steve’s able to open his eyes.

* * *

His handlers will be sorely disappointed.

“So he came back. Why?” the blonde man says, crouching on a table.

“Fuck if I know, but did you see the reaction Peggy’s group had to him?” the dark skinned man asks, leaning against a door frame, their weapons held lazily, but the soldier can tell they’re deadly. If he moves too quickly and too suddenly he’ll be dead in a second.

“Like they saw a fucking ghost. You think he’s that man that Steve keeps calling out to?”

The soldier’s mind spasms a little at the mention of the name “Steve”, and he stares at the blonde man.

“Don’t kill me,” the man snaps, falling back on the table, still holding his weapon. So much for deadly.

“Wasn’t planning on it,” the soldier responds.

“So he does talk.”

The doors open at that moment, and the two men stand up straight. A tall blonde man comes through the door first (the soldier swears, he _almost_ knows him), followed a brunette woman with one arm (the soldier knows her, but doesn’t know anything else). The woman gasps.

“Bucky…” she whispers, staring at the soldier. The soldier’s mind explodes with a million feelings, all of which are contained as soon as he recognizes them.

“Who are you?” he asks, glaring at the woman.

“Bucky, it’s me, Peggy,” she says, her face falling.

“I don’t know anyone named Peggy. I don’t know anyone in this room. I don’t know anyone,” he says.

“We need to get Steve,” the woman says to the tall blonde. The soldier feels something inside him break, and he almost wants to cry.

He doesn’t even know the name, he doesn’t know anything about the person behind it.

“Peggy, are you sure? Look at him. He has no idea who any of you are. And Maria said he didn’t recognize one of your men, and you told me he was close with most of them,” Thor says.

“He hasn’t said much, nothing to tell us how much he knows, at least. Just said he wasn’t planning on killing us,” the blonde soldier, the one on the table, says.

“I don’t know if that’s enough for us to go on to trust him, Clint,” Thor says.

“We can’t leave Steve in the dark. I realize this man, he’s dangerous, but Steve has to know. They were each other’s closest friends, they loved each other. I can’t live with the knowledge that I’d willingly hide something like this from Steve,” Peggy says. The soldier shudders again, and he feels tears welling up in his eyes.

_He doesn’t know this man._

“You okay man?” the dark skinned man asks.

“I don’t know. They never asked that,” the soldier, says, leaning forward, careful not to tug against his restraints.

“They never asked if you were okay?” Clint asks.

“Who’s they?” the dark skinned soldier asks, leaning forward, curious.

“My handlers,” the soldier answers. There’s a pause.

“Did you have any autonomy in your work with Hydra?” Peggy asks. For some reason, the soldier knows she knows his answer.

“No,” he answers.

“Then why’d you do it?” Peggy asks.

“They were all I knew. I woke up, and they gave me food, water, a new arm-”

“You lost an arm?” Peggy breaths. She’s missing most of her own left arm. The soldier moves his left arm slightly, and those in the room can hear the whirring of the plates beneath.

“Holy shit,” Clint whispers.

“I’m going to get Steve. Keep questioning him,” Thor says, leaving the room. The soldier watches him leave, and then turns to the others.

“Who’s Steve?”

* * *

“So you didn’t catch him?” Nat asks, rubbing her head. The upper left part of her head is covered in a bluish-black bruise, and she’s scraped up. They’re sitting on the edge of their beds in the medical ward.

“We almost did, but that fucker runs fast,” Steve says.

“He moves fast. I’ve never met anyone with reflexes faster than me before and yet he jumped me,” Nat says, shifting to take a sip of her water.

“I thought I saw someone trying to sneak into the complex not ten minutes before that, and then I thought I was going crazy. I guess I wasn’t.”

“And then what, did he beat you up or something? Why are you here?” Nat asks. Steve blushes.

“Panic attack. Thought about Bucky,” he says, slightly embarrassed.

“Oh, shit. That’s horrible. I’m sorry, Steve,” she says, reaching out to touch his arm gently.

“It’s okay. I need to get over it, it’s been months, and I need to realize there’s no way he’s coming back now,” Steve says. Nat twists her mouth, and looks like she’s about to say something when the door to the med ward opens and Peggy comes through, her face strained.

“Steve. There’s. The spy came back,” she says.

“And?” Steve asks, knowing there’s something behind it.

“It’s. It’s Bucky,” Peggy says, her voice trembling.

Steve’s world spins again, and he feels like he’s going to pass out again. That’s impossible. 

“Come and see,” Peggy says, grabbing his wrist.

This just doesn’t make sense, how could it make sense?

He saw Bucky being blown up, it’s been months. If he was the spy, he’d be working for Hydra, and there’s no way he’s working for Hydra, it’s a Nazi organization, he’s _Jewish_. Peggy leads him through the corridors, and Steve’s mind has already determined this can’t be Bucky, there’s no way in hell, it’s just an imposter, a clone, a robot, he’s not real, he’s not real, he’s not-

He’s real.

Steve stands, gaping at the man who is sitting on the chair in front of him, hands and legs tied to the metal.

“Bucky,” Steve whispers, staring at the man.

“You’re Steve?” the man asks, his voice trembling.

“Bucky, it’s me. It’s Steve,” Steve says, leaning in to touch his face. Bucky recoils slightly, and Steve jerks his hand back.

“What did they do to you, Buck?” Steve whispers. The man staring back doesn’t know him, and Steve feels.

Hollow.

The soldier wakes up that night, in the coolest, darkest time, just before dawn.

These people, they give him more luxuries than he could ever ask for, a soft bed and a warm meal and any time he wants water all he must do is ask and they give it to him.

“My handlers, they’ll be coming for me. I’m their most treasured possession, they can’t lose me.”

When he’d said that the room, which was already quiet, fell into an even deeper silence.

“Round the clock monitoring, double the watch, we move out tomorrow,” Thor had said. They’d fed the soldier, made sure he was healthy, taken blood samples, and the dark skinned man, who's name was Sam, had taken them away for testing. Another man, named Bruce, had sat down and asked him many questions, and the soldier answered them as truthfully as he could. He hadn’t seen Steve since he broke out into tears and Peggy and Sam had to take him out into the hall.

The soldier wonders who he was to Steve.

“I can’t do it Sam, I can’t look at him without thinking about. About everything we were, about everything we could’ve been, it’s. It’s too much. I love him too much and I can’t imagine having to see him like this, with no idea about anything or anyone around him. I don’t even know what they fucking did to him! And he doesn’t know me, Sam. I love him, and he doesn’t know me.”

The soldier overheard this in the hallway as they took him to the medical ward to check his vital signs. 

The soldier sighs, and lies back against his bed. His guards sit in the corner, whispering to each other. The two women are named Maria and Sharon, and they sit, almost intertwined with each other.

“You okay?” Maria asks, looking away from Sharon for a moment. The soldier thinks.

“Do you. Do either of you know who Steve is?” the soldier asks. Maria and Sharon exchange glances, and Sharon starts.

“Steve… his group showed up about four months ago, most of the rest of their group had gotten killed, and there was, what, eight? Yeah, eight that we got out, including Steve. He’s never told us much about himself, but he does have a lot of nightmares. He says your… he says Bucky’s name a lot. Bucky was his… what was Bucky to him?”

“No one knows,” Maria says, carefully watching the soldier as he ponders over their words.

“Can I. Can I go talk to Steve?” he asks. Maria looks at Sharon, and says something into her ear.

“I can go get him for you,” Sharon says, standing and walking towards the other side of the room.

“Thank you,” the soldier whispers as she walks away.

“Do you mind if I ask what they did to you?” Maria asks, watching Sharon as she leaves.

“They. I don’t know. I remember shocks sometimes. Sometimes they’d drown me or waterboard me. I only remember things from up to a few months ago,” he says.

“About how many months ago?” Maria asks. The two hear a quiet “ _what_?” from across the room, and Maria sighs.

“I’m not sure. Three or four. They. I think they wiped my memory, because I. I don’t remember anything before that.”

“Yeah, I figured,” Maria says. She looks up, and the soldier turns to where she’s looking. Sharon stands, Steve next to her.

“We’ll let you two talk,” Sharon says. Maria stands, and the two walk away. Steve stares at the soldier for a moment before sitting across from him.

“Do you remember anything? Anything about me, or Peggy, or the group?” he asks, not looking at the soldier.

“I wish. I wish I could say I did,” the soldier says. Steve purses his lips, and looks up at the soldier at the first time. The soldier is awe-struck. His eyes are deep blue, almost boring into the soldier’s soul. His face rings of familiarity.

It rings of home.

“You wanna go for a walk?” Steve asks. The soldier nods, slightly shocked.

“We gotta be quiet,” Steve whispers, leaning forward to grab the soldier’s hand. Steve pulls the soldier along, and they move silently through the rows of bunks. They’re almost to the door when someone swings in front of them from the bunks with a flash of red hair.

“What do you think you’re doing?” the woman asks. It’s the woman the soldier hurt the night before. She’s still scraped up, and the soldier winces at her appearance.

“What do you care?” Steve asks.

“You think he’s not hostile,” the woman says, eyeing up the soldier, “you do know he kicked me across the face, right?”

“Yeah, and I know he’s Bucky,” Steve says, moving slightly in front of the soldier.

“He never admitted to that, he doesn’t even know you, Steve. You can’t be this naïve,” she says, frowning disapprovingly.

“Nat. This is the man I’ve cried out to every night for the last four months. This man was my best friend. I don’t know what they did to him, I don’t know how deep he’s buried in there, but I’m going to get him out,” Steve says. The soldier is nearly in shock. He’s never had anyone stand up for him like this.

At least, not that he knows of.

“Steve, that is under the implication that Bucky is still under there. Why the hell would he still be there? They’ve had four months to play with him!” Nat hisses, angry.

“You’re acting like Hydra can erase nearly thirty years of memories within four months!” Steve says.

“They. Can. They destroyed the world in just six. The world. Millions and millions of years of human culture, destroyed. You know I wanted to go see the Great Sphinx? Clint and I were planning on going to Egypt the next month, before the bombs. And now, it’s gone. A nearly ten thousand year old piece of architecture, gone. Because. Of. Hydra.”

“Yes, but we’re not talking about a hunk of stone in the middle of the desert. We’re talking about Bucky, a human being with human feelings and human memories and a _life_. You can’t just decide to throw that away because of a dumbass company that decided they were socially superior!” Steve almost shouts. Nat sighs.

“If he tries to kill you, yell for me. I’ll be here,” she says, moving back towards her bunk.

“Don’t wait for it,” Steve mutters, grabbing the soldier’s arm.

“Steve, you didn’t have-”

“I didn’t have to what? Defend you?” Steve asks, dropping the soldier’s arm and opening the door.

“I thought you didn’t even think I was Buck… you didn’t even think I was your friend,” the soldier says. He and Steve walk out into the cool fall air, and let the chilly breeze blow over them.

“I don’t know. I can’t make snap judgements. But I know there’s a person under there. And if it’s not Bucky, I’ll be damned. For now, the least I can do is treat you like a human. Is there anything you go by? I don’t wanna call you by a name you don’t like, or you don’t feel comfortable in. At least not yet,” Steve says, leading the soldier up a ridge.

“I. They called me Yasha. It means demon, in Russian,” the soldier says.

“Well, Yasha, nice to meet you. You ever stargaze?” Steve asks. The soldier shakes his head, and Steve lies down on the ground, facing the sky. He pats the area of ground next to him, and the soldier cautiously sits down, and lies back next to Steve, who begins explaining the stars.

“Now, the whole thing with constellations is that in the old days, in order to guide themselves around, people would draw things in the sky, between stars. It used to be that we could just use technology and magnets to guide our way around, but as magnets are become more and more scarce, and technology is just dying out as a whole, we’ve started using the stars again. You know any constellations?”

The soldier does, but he shakes his head no. The way that Steve looks at him, and motions to the stars, and speaks about the sparkling bodies makes him feel like he’s.

Home.


End file.
